Tate

The institution originated from the benefaction of Sir Henry Tate, a sugar refiner and industrialist who made his fortune in the 19th century. In 1889, Tate offered his personal collection of British nineteenth-century art to the nation and provided funding for the construction of a new gallery. The gallery at Millbank, originally named the National Gallery of British Art, opened to the public in 1897.

It was commonly referred to as the Tate Gallery. In 1932, the official name was changed to the Tate Gallery. A significant transformation occurred in 2000 when the modern art collection was moved to a new site, and the original Millbank gallery was renamed Tate Britain to focus exclusively on British art.

The original Tate Gallery building at Millbank was designed by architect Sidney Smith in a Neoclassical style. Over the decades, the site underwent six extensions, including the addition of seven new rooms in 1910 to display the Turner Bequest and the Duveen Sculpture Galleries, the first in England built specifically for sculpture. The most recent major extension at this site was the Clore Gallery, opened in 1987 to house the world's finest collection of works by J.M.W. Turner.

The Tate Modern, opened in 2000, is a converted former power station on the Bankside designed by Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. An extension known as the Switch House, also designed by Herzog and de Meuron, opened in 2016.

The Tate holds the national collection of British art from 1500, featuring exceptional works from the 18th and 19th centuries by artists such as Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, William Hogarth, George Stubbs, John Constable, and William Blake. The collection is particularly renowned for its Pre-Raphaelite works, including John Everett Millais's 'Ophelia', and the world's largest collection of works by J.M.W. Turner. The international modern and contemporary collection, housed primarily at Tate Modern, includes significant movements such as Cubism, Futurism, Abstract Expressionism, Dada, Surrealism, and Pop art.

Notable holdings include works by Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian, Mark Rothko, Louise Nevelson, and Thomas Struth, as well as the Seagram murals by Rothko.

Tate is recognized globally for its pivotal role in shaping the public's understanding of British art history and modernism. The institution's expansion under directors like John Rothenstein and Nicholas Serota, particularly the opening of Tate Modern in 2000, transformed it into a leading international museum. The conversion of the Bankside Power Station into Tate Modern is cited as a landmark achievement in adaptive reuse architecture, revitalizing the Southwark area and setting a precedent for industrial heritage sites.

The museum's commitment to acquiring works by contemporary artists, including Stanley Spencer, Henry Moore, Francis Bacon, and Lucian Freud, has ensured its relevance in the ongoing narrative of art history.